Pleasant Family Shopping

[petek]

Our Simpson-Sears store

I finally found a picture. This is our Simpson-Sears store as it was in the day when I was a kid. This store opened in 1955 or 56 I think about the time I was born. They added a second floor in the 80's which changed the whole look. It was demolished about 10 years ago and a Sears opened out in mall-land.
In Canada, Sears Roebuck partnered with the Simpsons Dept store chain and all the surburban stores were called Simpson-Sears, by the 80's just Sears after the Simpson chain died out.

 

[petek]

Sarnia's old Kresge store

This was our old downtown Kresge, it's gone now as well, torn down I think

 

[rickr]

I had forgot all about Kresge's! I do not recall ever seeing the store, but remember adults referring to it. The name Kresge's used to come up often in conversation between adults when I was a small kid. Wonder what became of that chain? Do you know, Pete? They must have gone out of business in the late 50's or early 60's I guess.

 

[petek]

Kresge's became Kmarts and the old Woolworths became Woolco's. They both opened there stores out on "the strip" here in the late 60's early 70's and those two downtown stores closed. We had a Woolworths downtown as well, next block same side. I think the building is still there but just a shell used for a stinky Sunday flea market. We used to have Kresge, Wooldworth, Metropolitan, Zellers and The Hudson Bay, dept stores downtown, now nothing, all gone and most of the remaining little stores are either empty or junk/cheap type t-shirt stores etc or govt offices. Theyre trying to revitalize it but I don't think it'll ever come back.
BTW here's the movie house I worked at,, not this long ago LOL . It's still there and has been turned into a live theatre again, no movies anymore. So there is hope I guess.
Kresge's was across the street. Lookee that car in the pic..

 

[rickr]

So Kresge's became Kmart! No wonder I do not remember being in one! I do recall the new Kmart store north of the city though. Early 1960's.

Love the old theatre! And the 1940's car...

 

[danemodsandy]

Market Basket Ladies:

The way those two models in the Market Basket photo are dressed might have been all very well for Los Angeles at that time, but any woman going into an Atlanta grocery store dressed like that back then would have been given a wide berth by the other shoppers. I think things must have varied widely by area. Those women would have caused shock here. In fact, I can think of certain stores they'd have been asked to leave.

 

[passatdoc]

scott55405

Scott, when South Coast Plaza first opened, it had a typically Middle American mix of merchants. However, with the first expansion in the mid-70s (when they opened the first Nordstrom outside the Northwest), the complex shifted to upscale merchants. And it became even more upscale with each successive expansion. The mid-80s expansion, the Jewel Court, was almost exclusively filled with European luxury goods stores: Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Mark Cross, Yves St. Laurent, etc. It almost seemed like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

At about the same time, the Segerstroms began buying out the middle of the road retailers, and a Hallmark store (if there ever was one there) was exactly the kind of business they DIDN'T want: too mundane, and not the kind of store to generate huge profits or lure shoppers into the mall. I don't remember all of the retailers who left, but I recall that Woolworth's and the Wherehouse (music store) left after their leases were bought out. There used to be a Harris & Frank store at the corner of where the expansion (carousel area) met the old original May-Sears corridor, but I think the parent company went out of business rather than it being too middle brow for the Segerstroms.

As for a food court, there never was one there. Instead, there were restaurants scattered here and there, with enclosed seating. Again, I think they were shooting for people who could pay sit-down prices rather than those seeking take-away fast food. Some of the restaurants (like the recently closed Gustaf Anders and the long-gone Piret's) offered some of the best cuisine in the county. In addition, the presence of quality food inside some of the stores (e.g. Nordstrom Café) prevented the development of a food court.

I think their marketing strategy was to create a mall offering a high end collection of goods that you couldn't find anywhere else in the region, and they were willing to relinquish the Woolworths and Hallmark customers to the smaller, "average" malls in the area.

 

[passatdoc]

rickr

The Kresge Corp started KMart and changed their corporate name to KMart. For a while, both KMart and Kresge stores existed simultaneously, particular where a Kresge store was doing well in a retail space too small for a KMart. We had a (new for the era) circa 1960 strip mall near my house which had a Kresge through the late 1960s or possibly early 1970s (don't remember when it closed). Most of the KMarts were built new on a larger scale, and were often built as freestanding stores or as an anchor store in a large strip center.

 

[scott55405]

Passat, thanks for that interesting history. I get my hair done out there and am out there one Saturday a month. I do like some of the restaurants they have in there, particularly the Clubhouse. I think the addition across the street has quite a nice mix now, I like the Fossil watch shop, Z Gallerie, Crate and Barrel and etc.

Some of the stores in the main mall are just so over the top, but they make for entertaining observation and window shopping as you go from point a to b.

Rick, in Minnesota we had 2 Kresge stores that survived into the early 80s, one in a mid century strip mall and another in an older enclosed mall. There had been one in DT Minneapolis that closed much earlier, in the 60s. We'd gotten KMarts initially in the mid 70s and only ever had one Woolco that I know of. The Kresge stores had KMart "branded" items, and I remember initially the KMarts were "a division of the SS Kresge Company" before the changed the corporate name officially. We also had Zayre, Spartan-Atlantic and some other long defunct chains at one time as well.

 

[twinniefan]

Who may remember these

Does anyone remember these terrific old N.C.R. Class 3 electromechaical cash registers?, my old Woolworths was still using these when I was hired and most other stores had moved onto electroninc manual cash registers and then scanning.
I used to love using these, especiallly when there was a power failure, you simply screwed a handle into one side of the macjhine and you could still actually use it by pressing the keys and cranking the handle.
Cheers folks.
Steve.

 

[polkanut]

My mother worked at the Kresge's here in Wausau while she was in high school 1958-1960. She worked in their bakery dept. Kresge's was basically a dime-store. Ours had a wonderful lunch counter, and the smell of fresh baked bread and fresh deep-fried doughnuts was enough to send a kid into sensory overload. Grandma Wilde shopped there for her knitting and sewing supplies, and also at Herberger's dept. store. Their basement was a true "bargain basement". Kresge's was in business in Wausau from 1955-1980.

 

[passatdoc]

The Kresge in Loma Square, near my childhood home in San Diego, opened c.1960 when the shopping center opened. The shopping center is long gone, and the Kresge store is occupied by a CVS (formerly Sav On Drugs of California) which moved from a smaller space in Loma Square to the larger Kresge space in the mid-1970s. I was in college out of state and so could note changes only during Christmas and summers, but I remember coming home one summer and suddenly Sav On was where Kresge used to be. So at most the store existed about fifteen years. It was an example of how Kresge tried to adapt from older downtown locations to newer suburban-style shopping centers (though this was a residential area of San Diego and not out in a suburb).

Our Kresge had a lunch counter, though I can't say I ever ate there.

 

[passatdoc]

Scott

Scott, the detached section across Bear St. (now connected by a bridge; originally you had to cross the street no matter what the weather) is or was originally called Crystal Court. Used to have major dept stores as anchors. Opened in the mid to late 1980s. I believe there was a Robinson's store in it when it opened, but eventually May and Robinson's merged, sort of eliminating the need for two stores in one mall. The former Robinsons in Crystal Court is now Macys Home Furnishings.

I believe the other anchor in Crystal Court's south end was Broadway, but now it's Crate and Barrel. Now, as you mentioned, it's a haven for large stores like Crate and Barrel that need loads of floor room. The tenant mix sort of occillated over the years. I think Segerstrom tried to make it ultra high end at first. I remember that one of only two Kosta Boda galleries in the USA (the other in NYC) was originally in Crystal Court, then it moved to the main section of SCP, and it closed within the last couple of years. Now the mix is more middle of the road: Crate and Barrel, the retailers you mentioned, etc. They seem to finally have hit a happy medium and the formular evidently works.

I grew up in San Diego and didn't move to OC until 1982. So I never shopped there until 1982. However, I do remember pulling off the 405 on a family trip, coming home from LA, to check out the new addition to the Plaza in c. 1977, with the Nordstrom store and all the new retailers added when the Nordstrom wing went up (in a later late 80s expansion, a larger Nordstrom store was built, and the old Nordstrom store is now occupied by Macys). The current Bloomingdales store was the original May Co store that opened the plaza in the 1960s. The carousel was added in the first expansion with Nordstrom in the 1970s.

 

[jeffg]

Is Tiffany's still there? I once read that the main reason for SCP's high sales per square foot was because of a abundance of jewelry stores, something like 7 of the mall's 10 highest grossers were jewelers.

 

[scott55405]

Still there Jeff. It stands prominently to the left of the mall entrance as you come across the bridge (which has a name that escapes me at the moment) from the annex. I'm not sure who buys that stuff or where they wear it when they do; I certainly rarely if ever have occasion to see anyone so adorned. The only hint of opulence I tend to see in the general mall traffic are some rather high end cars you see in the valet parking sections, other than that everyone there looks pretty ordinary to me, so you don't really know who has money and who does not.

 

[petek]

Our Kresges had a lunch counter much like the ones in Woolworths. I remember it had red vinyl swivel stools and the cokes etc came in a paper cup that fitted into this plastic paper cup holder thingy whereas Woolworths you got glass or plastic cups. The other standout was the uneven wooden floors throughout the store and the old style ceiling fans.Don't remember if it was air-conditioned or not, probably not that early on because the fans were always spinning and sort of fascinated me.

 

[ironrite]

Woolco

Gawd! My first sort of "real job." I went into our local Woolco, dressed in my best black polyester doubleknit jacket with the red stitching, burgundy knit shirt and white tie to fill out an application. This was 1972. The jewelry manager saw me and noticed how well dressed I was and hired me to work in his area. The jewelry department was not Woolco, but a lease division called Medco. Medco was also the in JC Pennys as their jewelry department as well.

The rage of the day were those large cocktail rings for ladies, they looked like a small chandelier. Timex watches were fair trade items and never on sale. That first Christmas I worked there, my Mom got me a 1/2 carat diamond cluster ring, still have it to this day and it was $99.00 back then.

We did have one of those huge NCR cash registers. Bank Americard and Master Charges were done all on paper. You checked out the numbers for fraud/lost stolen in books that were sent out each week.

We also had the lady in customer service with the beehive hair, cat eye glasses that would glare at you like dirt if you wanted to write a check. You had to go there first to get it approved. She would look at your drivers license and other ID, glare at you some more, then take your picture on these odd little camera things. The check had better not bounce!

 

[danemodsandy]

Credit Card Fraud Books:

Lord, I'd almost forgotten those. Time-consuming as all get-out, and God help you if you failed to check and a card turned out to be bad. You had to initial every charge you put through, so any problems were traced back to you very quickly.

In the mid-'80s, card readers came in that helped, though you still had to input some info on a keypad. Now, the swipe takes care of everything.

What gets me is that today's kids have no idea of any of this. They can't even make change without the register figuring it for them. I taught a kid at Walgreens to "count up" once when their system wasn't working right a couple of years ago. He was amazed there was a way to figure the change without resorting to paper and pencil.

 

[launderess]

Cashiers and Making Change

One can really tell how far educational standards have slipped in the United States by the poor math skills of most cashiers.

God help you if one returns something and or anything else that requires them to either make change or do basic math. One day whilest checking out, noticed the scanned price for an item was higher than the price on the sticker on the item, so the clerk (a nice enough young girl), had to minus out the difference. It was either this or void out the entire transaction and start over, and am here to tell you it took her ages to figure out the difference. Indeed the line was so long and persons getting rather testy that a kind elderly old man behind me shouted out the correct amount. Bless his soul the man did it in his head, no pencil, paper and or caculator.

You cannot beat that old school education.

L.

 

[sudsmaster]

Even the swipes aren't fool proof.

I was at Walmart today and noticed the register beeped twice when a single item was put through. The cashier acted like she hadn't noticed, but quickly fixed it when I brought it to her attention. Needless to say, I went over the receipt carefully before I left the store, and I'm probably going to start doing that with every purchase at any store.

 

[launderess]

Those Huge Surburban Store Parking Lots

Quite a few wives, daughters and other women drivers had to call home and or came home to explain a minor (or major) accident with the car in that place! *LOL*

Scratches, dents, fights over a parking space!*LOL*

One drove home and parked the car in the garage or drive and wondered "will he notice"? Hubby came home and either one of two things happened: he did not and you got to get his favourite meal and a several drinks down him before telling, or he came into the house with a look that told the whole story and if one was smart one would go home to mother for a few days!

L.

 

[sudsmaster]

I remember the Woolworth's that was like an anchor on Market and Powell Street in SF in the 60's and 70's. Right beside the cable car turn-around. It had a long lunch counter as well, and I heard the food wasn't half bad, but I don't recall ever eating there. I guess it went away sometime in the 80's, but the building is still there, just some other store now.

 

[scott55405]

Iron, that brought back a funny memory. Anything having to do with Woolworth's was a notoriously convoluted, time consuming affair when it came to using checks. I didn't shop there that much except for small items which I paid cash, but shopped on break with a coworker sometimes and a couple of times thought she was going to reach across the counter and strangle the cashier, manager and whomever else had gathered to process this check which I'm sure was less than $10. I don't even know or remember if they accepted charge accounts. Things were so different then and you couldn't charge everywhere like you can now. Funny to think I once wrote probably 20 or 30 checks a month, and now most times it's just one for the rent. I think I've written 80 total in the 4 years I've been in CA. I also used to work in checking operations at banks, and I'm thinking those departments must be much diminished by now.

I remember when I worked at JC Penney's in the early 80s. We had computerized registers by then that did the credit checking and what not, but there were different forms (yes complete with carbon inserts) for each type of account, as well as a different transaction code for each type, you still had to imprint them with one of those press things, and the customer had to decide method of payment before you started ringing the sale. I can only imagine the poor, disheveled souls shopping today trying to navigate such a scenario.

 

[scott55405]

Oh, and we had two imprinting devices, because while major credit cards and many dept store cards were of standard size (like today's) by then, there were still older dept store cards in use from the 60s that were about half the size.

 

[jeffg]

> I was at Walmart today and noticed the register beeped twice when a single item was put through. The cashier acted like she hadn't noticed, but quickly fixed it when I brought it to her attention. Needless to say, I went over the receipt carefully before I left the store, and I'm probably going to start doing that with every purchase at any store. <

I've caught Safeway at this at least five times in the last year. God only knows how much money they're getting in overcharges from customers who aren't paying attention.

 

[launderess]

NYS Law Is Clear

Regardless of what price registers at the swipe, price must be given to the consumer as printed on the shelf and or affixed price tag.

Cannot tell you how many times one has caught a price difference between what was on the sticker and or on the shelf (most supermarkets these days are too lazy to price individual items anymore it seems), and what registers as item is scanned. Normally this happens at the supermarket, and one always is quick to catch it and point it out.

By all means, read those register receipts!

Of course when one does point the above out, a clever dick manager will fight against the price decrease, choosing to loose the sale than risk a few cents. Have seen some go back and remove an entire shelf of goods to be repriced, or stop others from taking the mis-priced items.

Then again have come across some REALLY helpful cashiers who would gladly allow one to go back and not only take whatever is on the shelf, but will call a stock boy to go and get more!
*LOL*

 

[launderess]

Vaguely

Remember imprints for credit/charge a plates, but mostly from my parents cards. When writing a check one remembers having to fork over a drivers license and telehone number which would be entered into the register. Later of course one found out such information went to places like "Chex Systems" and other companies that covered fraud and bounced checks. They paid the merchant and went after you themselves to collect.

 

[scott55405]

Back in the day, Launderess, I had my phone no. and license no. preprinted on my checks, until I found out what a no no that was. Many people did back then, though.

I am having a lot of fun perusing the Pleasant Family site today. I found a picture of the St. Paul, MN Sears I had mentioned earlier! It still looks much the same, but unfortunately they changed to the new logo. I always liked the design of the building.

 

[petek]

Woolco was my 2nd job I ever had back in 73 I think it was, floor coverings, hated it. One thing I remember is if there was a heat wave going on every single one of the air conditioners and all the fans piled up in the center aisle would be gone by store closing at 10pm.

 

[twintubdexter]

many many thanks...

...to all those who posted the wonderful photos and links on this thread. I'm reminded of stores from my "Beaver Cleaver" childhood and my days as a trainee at the Bay Area's old Emporium Department store. I will always be greatful for their giving me a buyer's position in San Francisco and effectively pushing me out of the closet and right on to Castro Street. I'm an old timer who goes all the way back to hand-cranking the registers during power outages because "the show must go on."

"S-2" The Emporium's second suburban store at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. The "Big E" meant big selection and was seen from Santa Rosa in the north to Salinas in the south.